Conrad Murphy approached the entrance of Humanoid Containment Site-29-2, covered by the dark, moonless night. He pulled the elastic from the back of his blank white mask, letting it snap across the back of his head. He yanked free a flash grenade from his black flak jacket. He continued walking deliberately towards the front gate, ignoring the facade of being a decrepit and perpetually condemned building. Conrad held the flashbang behind his back, faintly grinning behind the mask as his approach caught the attention of the night crew.

"Sir, this is a restricted area."

Two plainclothes guards moved to intercept Conrad, flicking open their collapsible batons. Conrad deftly tumbled the flashbang between his legs. The two guards turned their attention to the rattling as it clinked towards them.

"Oh shi-"

BANG

The shorter of the two guards fell backwards, blinded by the blast, the other had been fast enough to look away. Conrad rushed in, taking advantage of the brief distraction to yank the baton from the standing guard's hand. Conrad spun and ducked, cracking the steel bar against the guard's kneecaps, sending him screaming to the ground. Conrad kicked the downed guard in the chest, then brought down the nightstick against his head with a sickening crunch of broken skull.

The guard stopped moving.

He turned to the other guard, who was slowly trying to regain his senses, and stomped on the man's unprotected fingers. The guard let out a yell of pain, dropping his own baton to nurse his injured joints. Conrad knelt on the man's chest, then pulled a knife from his vest and pushed it against the guard's throat. The man stopped struggling, looking up at Conrad's flat, white mask with sheer, unfiltered spite.

Conrad continued to kneel on the gurgling guard's chest, watching him slowly drown in his own blood.

Conan Murphy watched from a distance as his brother made light work of the guards. Conan joined Conrad in front of the abandoned building, then detached an ID card from the taller guard's jacket. Conrad pulled off his white mask, then pushed it against the face of the man he had just killed. The thin plastic wormed its way into the dead guard's pores, intricately knitting itself into the flesh. Conan pulled the mask from his own face, beginning the same process.

"Nicely done with these two."

"Eh, Lichtenfield's been giving me pointers."

The masks glowed slightly, then made a soft pop as the guards' faces slid from their skulls. The brothers donned the masks, not caring enough to exchange clothes to complete their disguises. The masks sucked against the brothers' own faces, making a flawless seal between their own flesh and that of the deceased guards. Conan moved in towards the hidden entry to Humanoid Containment Site-29-2, sliding his ID into a small card slot. He moved his new face into the flashing retinal scanner, presenting the illusory projection of the dead man's eyeball. An electronic tone beeped confirmation, sliding open a brick façade to reveal a steel entryway.

"And now we're in. Simple."

Conan pushed his hands into his pockets, tightening his grips on a pair of anomalously silenced pistols. The brothers walked through the door, slowly descending into the metaphorical belly of the metaphorical whale. A long passage continued inwards, steel surrounding them from every side. The pair pushed open a glass door at the end of the corridor, squeaking their shoes on spotless linoleum into the well-illuminated lobby. A disinterested receptionist appraised them with a cursory glance, waved greetings at their fleshy masks apathetically, then returned to watching funny cat videos on her iPhone.

Conrad shrugged at his brother.

Conan shot the receptionist in the head.

Constantine Murphy sat tapping at a computer keyboard in the back of an unmarked van. His brothers, lovely little psychopaths that they were, had never been ones for subtlety. Constantine had figured out the shift schedule for the guards at Site 29-2, carefully run ultrasound scans mapping the inner facility, and drilled holes into the ground to intercept every line of communication into or out of the place. He had double and triple checked the plan, intending to keep the assault as brief as possible. There was only a small window of time during which they could strike. In and out. Orchestrating this task would have taken most people weeks; Constantine had accomplished it in three days.

He watched the feeds coming from his brothers' masks on a pair of LCD monitors. One of the two pulled a gun from his pocket, killing the receptionist. Constantine watched the other brother drop a small earthworm onto the receptionist's keyboard. It wiggled in between the mechanical keys, then disappeared into the cracks, and moments later Constantine's third screen lit up.

Constantine grinned, cracked his fingers, and started to run scans on his new access channel.

The receptionist didn't have particularly high clearance on the network, of course, but she had a direct connection to the site's database. Constantine hammered at keys, throwing information into every port and waiting for responses. A small prompt appeared, notifying him of the successful pings. He pushed attack procedures into the suitable nodes, and after a short delay, he had full administrative rights. He started downloading all local data files, until finally finding the person he was looking for.

Designation: A-24867Subject Identifier: Robin PuckDescription: Black hair, Brown eyes, Estimated ~45 years of ageInformation: Detained while escaping from Foundation personnel after a raid on a Chaos Insurgency base in Birmingham, England. Resisted detainment by disorienting personnel with a cognitohazardous hand gesture. Subject was sedated and, after testing discovered additional anomalous physiology, designated as A-24867. Currently stored at Humanoid Containment Site 29-2, Wing B, Room 45.Containment: To be fed three meals a day. Hands to be restrained at all times. No requests to be acknowledged. Available for testing on request.

"Conan, Conrad. Wing B, Room 45. Video footage shows that the corridors are reasonably clear. Local video feeds have been replaced with memetic kill agents. You'll have about ten minutes until someone realises something's amiss. Get to it."

Conan and Conrad adjusted their earpieces, walking side by side down the corridor. Humanoid Containment Site 29-2 was a minimum security facility; at night, they were reduced to a skeleton crew. The pair heard their paces echo, pointing their pistols precautionarily down every passage they passed. Conan scratched the edge of his flesh mask.

"Damn, these things get itchy."

"Get over it."

"Hey, I'm just sayi-"

Conrad turned the corner, shooting a pair of night guards in the chest, then head, knocking them to the ground like sacks of bricks. He turned to his brother, frowning at him through his stolen face.

"Get over it. We're here. Work on the lock, I've got you covered."

Conrad moved to the wall opposite the door, pointing his pistols in opposite directions to cover the whole corridor. Conan pulled a lock gun from his vest, jamming it into the door and clicking it repeatedly while twisting. The seventh tumble aligned the pins, letting him pull open the door. Conan looked inside, spotting the dishevelled man slumped against the corner of the room. The subject was wearing a bright green jumpsuit, clearly differentiating him from the expendable personnel in yellow. His hands were covered by a set of unusual steel handcuffs, chains connecting him to the wall of his cell. Conan entered, tapping the man on the shoulder gently.

"Robin Puck?"

Robin Puck opened his eyes suddenly, alert and aware. He sneered at Conan from his corner.

Conan pulled a small phial of red liquid from his vest, removing the rubber stopper and dropping a small splash where the chain was attached to the wall. The metal fizzed for a few seconds, then fell apart, completely corroded by the mixture. Robin Puck wiggled his arms within his restraints.

"What about my hands?"

"Worry about that when we're out of here. Let's go."

Conan returned to the corridor, Robin Puck following close behind. Conrad glanced at the pair of them, then moved to cover their evacuation.

Constantine noticed the first alarm going off, then intercepted and blocked it. The alarm triggered again, and again, he severed the connection. He switched his view to a video feed of the source; a guard was repeatedly pulling the trigger, confused and scared at the lack of response. The guard switched to his radio and started speaking to it in hushed tones; set to a frequency, of course, which was being jammed. Constantine rewound the tapes, watching the man discovering the bodies of two of his co-workers in the corridor. He then fast-forwarded to the present, just in time to see the man nervously unholster his pistol, then start to walk in the opposite direction of Conan, Conrad and Robin Puck. Constantine couldn't help releasing a short chuckle.

Conan and Conrad heard a message in their earpieces from their brother.

"A guard's noticed the bodies, but he's gone wandering in the wrong direction. You should be clear all the way out."

Conrad sprinted to every corner they passed, aimed his guns down either direction of the crossroads, then jumped across to the other side, covering Conan and Robin Puck as they passed. The three of them continued like this, stopping to check each corridor they passed, until finally getting to the lobby. They sprinted down the steel entryway as fast as possible, exiting the still-open door they had entered through. Conrad and Conan moved on either side of Robin Puck, matching his pace perfectly. Robin Puck walked to the sidewalk near the deceptively decrepit building, panting softly. Conan turned to their rescuee, reassuring him.

As soon as the words left Conan's mouth, an unmarked van pulled up in front of them, Constantine Murphy grinning out at them from the driver's side window.

"Your chariot awaits!"

Conan, Conrad and Robin Puck eagerly climbed through the door, slamming it shut as they drove away.

Ten minutes later, Constantine turned off all jammers and interceptors centred around Humanoid Containment Site-29-2. Requests for strike teams and support were sent to every nearby facility, sirens screamed throughout the site, and researchers hid under their desks in panic. Some people tried to evacuate the facility, while others tried to lock the place down. Even with the return of communication, there was still no comprehension, no cohesion, and no coherence.

"Out you get, Mister Puck. Yours is the red one over there. Keys are in your pocket."

"Thanks for the break, boys. See you around."

The three men named Con Murphy sat in the car, watching Robin Puck walk across the carpark. Robin Puck waved his hands in the air, embracing his freedom from the restrictive cuffs, then pulled the car keys from his pocket. The three Cons watched him enter the vehicle, reverse out of his park, and drive down the street into the distance. Constantine turned around from the driver's seat, smiling at his brothers.